


standing still

by newrromantics



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newrromantics/pseuds/newrromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> You’ve gotta stop lyin’ still, ‘cause this is no kind of life. You don’t need guarantees, you just want somethin’ to build </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	standing still

Cordelia is a name her parents pass down to her from a dead-mans play. King Lear’s most beloved daughter. But her parents never had any more children after her and she could never fill the gap that her older brother left in them. 

It was an unspoken rule in their household not to mention his name. William had been named after the Bard himself, her parents studied Drama in London. It was how they had met, falling in love over coffee’s and heated discussions about Shakespeare. They’d been together for a few, short blissful months before Will had come into the picture; they’d had a quick wedding in a garden and their parents had cried, but been disappointed. 

Her father had hailed from dreary New York and her mother from sunny California. They’d settled down in L.A., in a huge mansion at twenty-three and a baby on the way. Cordelia had been to that mansion, once, when she was six years old and they were getting ready to sell it. Eight years after they first left the place vacant. 

Cordelia knows only bits and pieces of her brother, a polaroid here, a drawing there, a baby book hidden underneath her parents bed. He was a ghost in their household, an unspoken memory Cordelia can’t recall. Her parents mastered the art of oblivion and Cordelia was taught how to ignore the truth at a young age. Turn a blind eye to anything you don’t need to know. 

He’d been four years old. Cordelia learnt that from her weeping grandparents when she was seven years old. She looked like him, apparently. Same eyes. It’s why her parents were so distant with her, flying from country to country, giving her everything she could ever ask for. Trying to fill a gap that could never be filled. It left Cordelia lonely and begging, empty and lost. It had happened two years before she came into the picture (the mistake child, the baby they had to try and fix the past). 

It’s not until years later, when she’s twenty-five years old that she learns the truth. Her baby brother, the one she never got a chance to know, had died from a puncture in his neck. Two small bite marks. Cordelia calls it bitter irony. Hard pill to swallow. Of course her brother was sucked dry from a vampire. Mercilessly killed by a blood-sucking fiend. The same kind she had worked for, the same kind she’d spent her life destroying. 

Buffy held back her hair, stroking her neck, as she threw up that night. In their cramped New York apartment, with the hung up fairy-lights and the Christmas tree pushed in the corner of the room and the smell of lavender that filled every crevice of the room. 

 

 

*

 

 

There’s one distinct Before-Slayer memory that always stands out for Buffy - she started separating her life into Before and Afters and most of the Before memories feel fake to her, covered in a shiny coat of plastic, untouchable. It had been such a different time back then, a technicolour film covered in a bubblegum colour palette. Her life then had been full of all the things she dreamed of After but could never quite grasp. 

Buffy remembers staying late after school, the clock ticking a quarter past four and snapping pink bubblegum in the hallway. It was her usual Friday routine, cheer practice ended at four and she never really left straight after. Her uniform was crinkled, her skirt riding up freshly shaved thighs. _Tonight was going to be the night_. It’s a thought, a sentence, that cycled through her head for weeks. But was made definite when she was leaning up against his locker, mint nails tapping against her propped up knee. It’s a thought she can still recall years later, in a small apartment with rain stuck to her skin and a boy not human underneath her, in a dorm room with whats-his-name, in a dorm room with a boy she loved, and in so-many-different-places with a dead guy she loathed. Tyler was supposed to be her first. It haunts her for weeks after she first sleeps with Angel. He wasn’t supposed to be the one. If Tyler and her hadn’t fought that Friday, maybe everything wouldn’t have gone terribly wrong.

“You’re late.” Buffy rolled her eyes as she saw Tyler approaching, his hair messy and mused, his lips crooked up in a semi-smile. Her anger rolled off of her in waves and then dropped to the floor into a puddle, melting away as his arms came up around her shoulders. 

“Sorry.” He whispered quietly, quickly, before kissing her and grabbing her hand. His fingers laced with hers. 

Buffy shrugged her shoulders, her smile lighting up as she happily followed him back to his car. He was older, cooler, more mature than the boys in her year. Even one year made a difference. Sixteen was so much _cooler_ than fifteen. Boys her age were still fumbling with their hands, tripping over their words, learning how to kiss properly - or, at least, the boys her friends were seeing were fumbling idiots. Her last boyfriend, before Tyler, had been her year, he’d been okay but not good. Definitely not _great_. He definitely didn’t have his learners, or his own car. But Tyler did. 

Even After, she could still remember the way he smelt - like that awful aftershave that filled the school hallways - and the way the leather interior of the car his Daddy brought for him felt underneath her thighs. The way he kissed in the sun, warm and tender, the way he kissed at night, hard and fast. 

He’d driven her out to his house - an exuberant mansion Buffy still marvels at years After - and they’d sat in his car for twenty minutes, waiting for his parents to leave before going inside. They never made it inside. Buffy had put her head on his shoulder, his hand riding up her thigh, up her cheer skirt. It had been warm that afternoon, the sun making her sweat, his lips on his ear as he retold the horror stories from the house next-door. 

“They say vampires killed their son.” He’d laughed, and Buffy had rolled her eyes, and he had swore on his life that was what they said.

“Do you believe them?” Buffy had asked, slinging her arms around his neck. He’d look at her like she was crazy - and that she remembers, too, always, that look follows her everywhere she goes - and shook his head. 

“I’m not a loony.” He’d laughed, scooting closer to her and flicking his eyes back to his house. “Fuck, are my parents ever gonna leave?” 

But Buffy was less interested in their _plans_ (and her heart raced as she thought of them, **_beat, beat, beat_** against her chest, squeezing her thighs together) and more interested in the horror tale from next door. One week later and she’d have someone telling her it was real. Years and years later and she’d have a girl she loved crying on her lap, choking out the story.

Buffy doesn’t remember everything else that happened in the same kind of clarity, some kind of fight broke out, and she’d broken up with Tyler and gone home crying. Had waited for him outside the steps out of school a week later and been told her destiny instead of her boyfriend proclaiming his love for her. He’d be caught in the cross-fire a few months after that, a few weeks before she moved to Sunnydale, and that would be the end of that.

 

 

*

 

 

Cordelia spots the new girl and thinks _yes, fresh meat_. She’s pretty and dresses well, is cute in a way that’s both clique-able and kiss-able. There’s something off about her but Cordelia ignores it the way she’s learned to ignore other things over the year. Harmony and the other girls have been boring her to tears lately, and there’s something familiar about the new girl - like they’re connected in a way they don’t know about yet. 

Buffy’s from L.A., anyway, which is immediately _just the coolest_. So, Cordelia extends an invitation for her to hang out with them. And memorises the scent of her perfume and the way her hair looks underneath the light. 

But of course, Buffy has to go and fuck it up. Which leaves Cordelia fuming because it’s not often that someone is accepted into the Cordettes so _easily_ or at all. (Cordelia doesn’t want to admit it’s actually because she thinks Buffy’s kind of, well, really cool. It’s a truth she buries, a truth she ignores, a truth she doesn’t even know herself).

 

 

*

 

 

Buffy’s in Europe. Dawn and her, and weirdly enough, Andrew Wells, have settled down in Rome. Buffy picked it on a whim, put her finger against a globe in the hotel they’d stayed at following the demise of Sunnydale. Faith had offered up Angel’s hotel and Buffy had felt sick at the thought, her stomach flip-flopping in her chest - she needed a fresh start, with no ghostly reminders following her around.

It’s in Rome that she stumbles across Cordelia Chase, the two of them finding themselves both at the Bocca della Verità. Cordelia wears a wide-brimmed black hat with a silk cream bow and a mustard crop-top and skirt that would look bad on anyone else. Her whole face lights up when she sees Buffy, waving to her like they were old friends.

(And Buffy is reminded of the summer before Cordelia left for L.A, the month where they bonded after graduation. Hours spent in Buffy’s room, listening to music and comparing teen queen stories and giggling into the early hours of the morning, an empty tub of ice-cream and fashion magazines strewn out in front of them. 

And the kiss – that _god-damn_ kiss – in the early hours of the morning, the day Cordelia was driving to L.A. in her sparkling red car, the only thing that hadn’t been taken away from her. “I’m gonna have to sell it when I get there,” She had pouted, in her hand-me-down clothes, passed from Buffy to Cordelia as a gift. 

It had been Cordelia who had leaned in, eyes fluttering closed, and it was three a.m. and Buffy felt like this was _it_. A moment that would mean something. It was a few brief minutes of lip gloss smacking together, tongues tangling, and then Cordelia pulling away, smiling sheepishly, shyly. “I have to go.” And Buffy forgetting, forgetting, forgetting).

“Long time, no see.” Cordelia greets her, two kisses on each cheek. Her hands loosely cradling her biceps. 

The last time Buffy had seen Cordelia had involved a kiss, too, she thinks as she pulls away. “Yeah. Both of us too busy off saving the world.”

Cordelia had become a hero in her own right, a champion that could teach Buffy a thing or too. 

“I’m taking a break from that.” Cordelia explains. Death had been too close for her. Being possessed had made her reevaluate just how important the visions were, how important it was to put herself on the line time and time again. Cordelia believed in helping the greater good but she didn’t believe in destroying herself for it.

Buffy didn’t know how to take a break, but she was willing to try. 

 

 

*

 

 

Cordelia goes back to that mansion. Once. The summer she moves to L.A. It’s a few days after she gets there, her red car still hers (for now), and the feeling of Buffy’s lips burned into her own. 

It’s got new owners now and Cordelia’s never really been connected to it in the first place but it still feels like sort of a loss. Like something she’s supposed to mourn but can’t. Her parents are gone now, too, not that they were ever really there to begin with. 

A man in his mid-forties wanders out from next door. Cordelia barely glances at him as she leans back against her car and looks at the house that was once in her family’s name. The Chase’s are pariahs now. Her parents out somewhere in the world trying to avoid jail time. 

“Need help?” The man asks. He startles Cordelia, a hand flying to her heart to steady herself. Her brows furrowed as she takes him in.

“I’m good.” Cordelia tells him, flicking her eyes back towards the house that could have been hers. She wonders what happened to that little boy. Her parents had always been tight-lipped about it. Her grandparents would stroke her hair and tell her _“you’ll know when you’re older.”_ but she’s older now and she still knows nothing.

“You’re a Chase, aren’t you?” The man interrupts her train of thought and she glares at him for half a second before her face softens.

“Did you know him?” Cordelia asks. He could give her the information she doesn’t have. 

He nods his head. “William? I knew him. You look like him.” 

“He was my brother.” Cordelia says. The word feels foreign on her tongue. _Her brother._ Cordelia’s never referred to him as that out loud before. He’s a buried down memory she’s heard about second-hand. He’s not her brother.

“I didn’t know they had any other children.” 

“I came after.” Cordelia replied impatiently, tapping her heel on the ground. Patience was a virtue. It was not a virtue she possessed. 

He nods his head, humming like he gets it now. “You’d be about the same age as my son, I think. He died, too.”

Cordelia raised an eyebrow, “Uh? Cool.” 

Death was a part of life. You learn to accept that living on a Hellmouth.

He offers her nothing useful. One or two memories of seeing William. A few short tidbits about his son Tyler. Cordelia leaves with her life unchanged.

 

 

*

 

 

Buffy suggests pizza and Cordelia teases her for being a predictable tourist. It’s officially a date. Except, it’s not an official we-talked-about-this-and-agreed-it-was-a- _date_ -date. But Cordelia had held her hand when they’d gone to the Trevi Fountain and Buffy had thrown a coin into the fountain, wishing for a proper date. Or something.

“Okay,” Cordelia relents, her voice light. “We can get pizza. But only from the _best_.”

Buffy laughs, one of those laughs where she throws her whole head back and feels her whole body _alive_ with the laugh. In the middle of wars and the end of the world, it’s rare to laugh like that. Cordelia grins, rolling her eyes at her.

“We’re in Italy.” Buffy points out, in between chuckles.

Cordelia sighs, exasperated, because the rich girl in her knows: “Just because we’re in Italy, doesn’t mean all their pizza is good!”

Cordelia ends up leaving her apartment shortly after that, telling her to wear something nice and plaiting Dawn’s hair for her. At seven o’clock, Buffy would pick Cordelia up because she refused to be the one doing the picking-up. 

Dawn smiled from her spot on the couch, “You’ve got a crush.” She sing-song-ed, causing a light blush to flood Buffy’s cheeks.

“I do not.” Buffy retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. Dawn rolled her eyes, clicking her tongue and gathering her bag.

“Whatever.” Dawn said as she pushed past her. “I’m gonna be at Gen’s!”

 

 

*

 

 

(Buffy knows she likes girls the moment Hilary kisses her at a party - a game of truth and dare - “Hilary, you gotta kiss Buffy!”

And Buffy with her little palms sweating and her heart thumping. Hilary leaning in until her lips are hovering over hers, laughing and laughing and laughing. Her friend. 

It’s a short, brief kiss. One peck. Hilary pulls away. The crowd boos. “That’s not a kiss, Hil!” Buffy laughs nervously, wanting _more, more, more_. Hilary slips her her tongue for one, two, three, four, five seconds).

 

 

*

 

 

Cordelia and her get tipsy off of the wine, spilling secrets over a candle-light dinner. 

“Is this a date?” Cordelia asks, “I think it’s a date. I hope you know it’s a date.”

Buffy nods. “It’s a date.”

Cordelia nods her head, reaching for her hand from across the table. “Good. I really like you, Buffy Summers.” Cordelia pauses, then laughs. “That’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say.”

Buffy shakes her head, giggling. “Nope.”

 

 

*

 

 

The night ends outside the Spanish Steps. Cordelia slings her jacket over Buffy’s frame, leaning her head against her shoulders. The two of them look at the stars, tipsy - or maybe drunk - and sighing. The silence is a welcome friend, comfortable between the two of them. 

Two misguided teen queens turned into heroes. 

“I can’t…” Cordelia starts, sucking in a breathe. “We can’t date if you’re still an active slayer.”

Buffy is still an active slayer. She slays. She kills. She fights. It’s in her blood. It’s all she knows. 

“Okay.” Buffy nods.

“So?” Cordelia prompts.

“I can. I can stop. It’s not a good life. People get hurt. _I_ get hurt. There are other slayers now, more than just Faith. I can…” Buffy looks up at the stars, then to Cordelia. “I can quit.”

“I don’t want you to quit for me.” Cordelia speaks up quietly. “It’s gotta be for you.”

Buffy’s sick of playing this game - the same one she’s played since fifteen - the title of Hero feels good until she’s lying slack on the ground, blood on her mouth, bruises that fucking hurt. Her loved ones dead. Buried. Saving the world comes at a cost. And, hasn’t she saved the world enough? 

“It’s for me.” Buffy says. 

She can’t have a life if she’s putting it on the line all the time. And Buffy _wants_ a life. She wants a cute apartment, small and cramped, but full of everything she loves. She wants a pet, maybe a turtle. She wants a city view. She doesn’t want to go back to small towns. She wants a 9-5 job. Maybe she’ll go and get a degree for guidance counselling. She wants friends who think of the supernatural as myths, legends, just good TV. In the future, she wants kids. Two. A boy and a girl. _Predictable_. Buffy wants everything Angel said she’d want someday, and she wants it with Cordelia. 

She’s tired of waiting for the end to come, she wants to start building a future. 

“Okay.” Cordelia smiles, yawning slightly. 

“Okay.” Buffy echoes, feeling more at peace than she has in years.

 

 

*

 

 

Buffy calls Angel once after he leaves for L.A. She’s drunk. Really, badly trashy drunk. Missing Angel drunk. 

Buffy calls his number, the one he left with Willow and Giles and everyone but _her_. But Angel doesn’t answer. Cordelia answers, with her bright and chipper voice. 

“This is Angel Investigations! We help-”

“Cordelia?” Buffy interrupts, slightly confused. She knew Cordelia was working for Angel but all she could think of was that _kiss_. How much she wanted another one.

“Buffy.” Cordelia replies. Buffy can see her rolling her eyes, her chipper voice dying. 

“Oh. Hi.” Buffy giggles, flopping backwards onto her dorm bed. Willow is sound asleep opposite her. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Cordelia replies curtly. “I’m busy, so if you have an actual _problem_ …”

“No problem.” Buffy replies quietly.

“Good.” Cordelia hangs up.

 

 

*

Cordelia grows bored of Rome after a few months. Dawn wants to go to Berkeley or Columbia. Cordelia wants to go to New York. 

“My father was from there.” Cordelia explains as they pack their bags. Dawn’s singing a pop tune. Buffy kisses Cordelia underneath the doorway arch. 

“I love you.” Buffy tells her, soft and quiet. The first I love you of many.

“Duh. We’re moving to New York together.”

 


End file.
